Background
Evolution Malta Ltd. holds patents covering its Lightning Roulette product — a live-dealer online casino roulette game in which, before the ball lands, the system randomly selects wheel positions and assigns multiplied payouts (50x to 500x) to bettors on those numbers. Evolution sued Light & Wonder, Inc. in May 2024 in the District of Nevada, alleging that Light & Wonder’s competing product, Roulette X, infringed three Evolution patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 11,011,014, and two companion patents covering the same core method.
The district court proceedings took a sharp turn in February 2025. Judge Cristina D. Silva granted Light & Wonder’s motion to dismiss, holding that all three patents were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 applying the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l framework. Judge Silva found that the patents were “primarily directed to a method of assigning financial payouts based on probabilities” — an abstract idea — and that nothing in the patent claims supplied the inventive concept that would save them. Critically, the invalidity finding was with prejudice and extended to all challenged claims.
Meanwhile, Light & Wonder had filed three IPR petitions (IPR2025-01072, -01073, -01078) challenging the same patent claims on prior art (anticipation and obviousness) grounds. The PTAB granted institution of all three IPRs — meaning the Board agreed to take up the prior art challenges — even though the district court had already held the patents ineligible under § 101. Evolution sought Director Review of the institution grants, asking that the proceedings be terminated in light of the § 101 ruling.
The Court’s Holding
On June 22, 2026, USPTO Director John Squires issued a precedential decision (Paper 30 in IPR2025-01072) vacating the notices granting institution in all three related IPR proceedings and denying institution entirely. The rationale was straightforward: because the district court had already found all challenged patent claims invalid under § 101 with prejudice, no live controversy remained over the validity of those claims. Continuing expensive PTAB proceedings to litigate prior art grounds would waste Board resources and party funds on disputes that could no longer affect the enforceability of the patents.
More significantly as procedural precedent, Director Squires established a new 30-day deadline for parties to request Director Review of institution decisions — replacing the prior 14-day window that applied in some proceedings. The 30-day window now applies “on equal footing” to Director Review requests of both institution decisions and final written decisions (both of which had previously operated under different time frames). The decision also defines the “exceptional circumstances” standard permitting requests beyond 30 days: the post-institution dismissal of co-pending litigation, a district court invalidity ruling with prejudice (as here), or a Sotera-stipulation violation are identified as qualifying events.
Key Takeaways
- 30-day Director Review window for institution decisions: Patent owners now have four more weeks (previously 14 days under certain provisions) to assess whether changed district court circumstances justify requesting Director Review after the PTAB grants institution. The clock starts from the institution decision, not from any subsequent triggering event.
- District court § 101 wins can terminate parallel IPRs: A final invalidity ruling with prejudice — whether on § 101, prior art, or otherwise — is now a clearly recognized basis for seeking Director termination of a co-pending IPR. This strengthens the asymmetric dynamic where petitioners get a “second bite” in the IPR, but patent owners can use district court wins to shut those proceedings down.
- Squires continues to treat PTAB as a litigation substitute: This decision reinforces the Director’s consistent view (see also Magnolia Medical Technologies v. Kurin, May 2026) that the AIA’s IPR mechanism was designed to serve as an alternative forum, not a supplement that runs concurrently with district court litigation to compound the cost of defending patents.
- Designated precedential: The 30-day rule is binding PTAB policy and will apply to all future Director Review requests of institution decisions, not just cases involving § 101 parallel rulings.
Why It Matters
The Light & Wonder decision is part of Director Squires’ ongoing project to rationalize the PTAB’s docket by preventing multi-front litigation from duplicating work that has already been done in district court. For patent owners, the new 30-day Director Review window is a modest but meaningful procedural win — one additional tool to use when the district court provides cover for requesting PTAB retreat. For petitioners, the lesson is that district court § 101 victories obtained early in parallel litigation can now be weaponized not just to moot the district court claims but also to extinguish the PTAB proceedings that were intended to serve as an alternative path to invalidation.
The underlying Lightning Roulette dispute also illustrates the enduring challenge of patenting computerized gaming innovations. What makes Lightning Roulette commercially successful — the dramatic, real-time selection of multiplied payouts — is precisely the kind of probabilistic financial method that courts have consistently found abstract under Alice. The path to valid patent protection for these products likely runs through concrete implementation specifics (the software architecture, the specific rendering process), not the commercial method itself.